1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radio base station configured to receive data transferred from a radio network controller through a wired transmission path having a predetermined bandwidth, and to transmit the data to a mobile station through a radio transmission path. The present invention also relates to a mobile communication method.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is conventionally known a mobile communication system using flow control in a wired transmission path (Iub interface) established between a radio network controller RNC and a radio base station BTS (see, for example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2005-286786 (which is referred to as Patent Document 1 below)).
Specifically, as shown in FIG. 1, a mobile communication system described in Patent Document 1 is configured such that the radio base station BTS determines a transfer rate of data transferred from the radio network controller RNC to the radio base station BTS, based on a “bandwidth usage percentage (=‘bandwidth being used’/‘a predetermined bandwidth’)” in the wired transmission path.
In the mobile communication system described in Patent Document 1, the “bandwidth usage percentage” increases as a bandwidth being used by a certain mobile station UE increases. Accordingly, this mobile communication system has a problem of lowering the transfer rate at which the radio network controller RNC transfers data directed to the certain mobile station UE to the radio base station BTS even when there is space in, for example, the radio transmission path established between the radio base station BTS and the certain mobile station UE, or a buffer for the certain mobile station UE in the radio base station BTS.